Amintirea Imperiului
2019 • 454 pages

Ratings4

Average rating3

15

This is another one of those ‘scifi in name only books'. 95% of the story could have taken place anywhere but since it's a talky book and I like talky books I continued on. Now, with talky books, you need intelligent characters having intelligent dialogue so that when you read a conversation you get goosebumps. Did the author manage to do that here? no, not by a long shot. The Author tries to put layer upon layer of subtext, double and triple meaning in every little gesture in every dialogue that ultimately everything turns out to be almost meaningless. Luckily she recognised this and had the MC's sidekick or the MC's inner monologue explain the actual meaning of every line, making it unnecessarily long and pointless.
This book is a masterclass in ignoring ‘show, don't tell'. We get told about aliens, yet never meet any. We get told about spaceships, yet never see any, we get told about jump gates, yet never use any let alone learn how they work, probably magic, I don't know. There is very little ‘sci' here.
80% of the book is buildup to the last 20% which are somewhat promising for the second book. But having a whole book as setup for a second book, which other authors put on the blurb, is a bit much, for my taste.

All in all it kinda feels like a more highbrow, less interesting, less fun version of ‘The Collapsing Empire' by Scalzi with all the scifi elements taken out.

March 31, 2024Report this review